The Cost of Educating Undocumented Students

About 2 million of the nation's 53.3 million school-age children, or 4 percent, are living in the country illegally, says a report released by the Congressional Budget Office this month. And an additional 3 million school-age children are U.S. citizens born to parents who are undocumented. Those figures were first reported by the Urban Institute.

But the report doesn't give an overall, national numberit merely cites figures for how much local and state governments in Minnesota (between $79 million and $118 million) and New Mexico (about $67 million) estimated it costs them to provide schooling for such children.

For further analysis, see the Director's Blog over at the Congressional Budget Office. The director notes that the tax revenue collected from undocumented immigrants doesn't offset the costs involved in providing services to them, although the costs make up a small share of overall spending by local and state governments.

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